


I can't help wondering, was your heart ever open? (mine has been, all this time)

by MatildaSwan



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag - S2E10: A New Dawn, F/F, I fixed it!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 06:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13969260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: Pippa returns to Pentagle's thinking she'd seen the worst this day had to offer, and the best.She was wrong on both counts.





	I can't help wondering, was your heart ever open? (mine has been, all this time)

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Anxiety, Emotional Drain + related (helpful) breakdown, abandonment issues, touch of self-loathing. Oh also, gay pining! Like, obvi, how did I forget that one?

The flight home is long. Her hat barely stays on her head as the wind whips fringe; she keeps the sun on her back the whole way, magic pouring into the spell while her mind stays occupied the day just gone, circling around and around and always coming back to one, singular certainty: 

_That could have gone better._

She hadn’t meant to waltz in and step on anyone’s toes, hadn’t meant to unsettle the balance too much by adding herself to the mix. But even the best intentions get trod on by egos and hurt feelings. 

The storm she flew right into a few miles from Cackle’s certainly hadn’t helped matters: it soaked her right through before she’d even had a chance to cast a drying spell. She resorted to a weather spell, as Cackle’s began to loom on the horizon; added a drying spell and realised it would be rather fitting, to land in the Academy’s front courtyard under the protection of a weather spell and pass on that gift on to Cackle’s and its girls. 

It is, after all, how she got Hecate back in the first place. 

She felt bright, _excited,_ to teach the students modern witching, new ways of doing things, new possibilities within the Craft. Then Hecate had greeted her, ribbed at her, and the ground shifted under her feet before they’d even hit solid ground. Hecate did always have a way of making her feel unbalanced, especially while flying. 

She feels better now, land firmly on the solid ground of her home in the middle of the green courtyard her favourite tower overlooks. She can collect herself here, with her welcome surroundings, settle into the familiar bricks and mortar of the castle and the hum of long-infused magic and the curious mutterings of her pupils. 

A few elder girls move to greet her; she ushers them all inside with promises of pudding to apologise for the weather. They all frown up at the clear, bright sky but move inside anyway. The front door is barely latched behind her when the downpour starts. 

She knew this would happen, the cost of holding the clouds at bay and the sun shining for so long, but it was worth it, to see Cackle’s in the same light as Hecate. 

She greets her deputy, passes on her promises of dessert, and begs off for the night. Her feet may be settled now; her mind is anything but.

She transfers to the top of her tower and magics off her dress. It remateralises in a slightly crumpled heap by her feet as her magic protests to more unnecessary casting. She sighs, rolling her shoulders against the itch of her depleted power, and crouches down; can’t see the point in agitating it with more unnecessary magic when she’s perfectly capable of putting a dress back in her wardrobe with her own two hands. 

She shakes it out as she pulls the doors open, kicking her clogs inside too; they hit the wooden back with a solid thud and she smiles, pushing hangers to one side of the rack and sliding the pink in among magenta and peach and berry. 

A glimmer of gold catches her eyes as she smoothes the rack out again. She scrapes the hangers out of the way, to get at depths of her dress collection, reaching out to stroke a fingertip over the embroidery. 

It really is a beautiful dress, soft and delicate and detailed, but she’s not sure why she kept it all these years. Not when she has yet to find a reason to wear it again, though she suspects it would need a few adjustment here or there—now she’s a touch taller, a little thicker, a lot stronger—but nothing a little witchcraft can’t handle. Not when she only ever wore it for one reason in the first place.

And she’s just barely started speaking to her again. 

She’d wanted Hecate to notice her, wanted to catch her eye, wanted her to—well, simply wanted her, Pippa can freely admit now, if only to herself, as she’d realised in the weeks leading up to that night, months after the broomstick display where her best friend abandoned her to stand alone and humiliated in front of the whole school and so many visitors from nearby academies who’d come to compete above the same lake they’d been practicing on all term until they’d perfected everything _, together,_ to tell everyone the host school wouldn’t even be competing because her partner didn’t care enough to show up, or say why, or even apologise.

She’d spent hours on the dress, charming it to gleam gold and glittering in candlelight, her ears ringing with the echo of a rare compliment that had fallen from Hecate’s mouths more than a year before: ‘Your hair looks like gold in the sunlight,’ she’d noticed one day, when Pippa was enjoying the last of the autumn sun next to Hecate, always studying, even on a picnic blanket while they snacked during a free period. ‘It suits you,’ she’d said, gazing at Pippa beaming back at her, before burying her head back in her book, a light dusting of blush rising in her cheeks. 

Pippa had picked up an apple and munched it to the core, setting it aside to sit close and read over Hecate’s shoulder. Though no more about it until the leavers ball loomed close and the overwhelming need to make Hecate look at her, actually _look_ at her after months of staring right through Pippa like she was doing her best to pretend she wasn’t even there.

One of Hecate’s many lessons: it’s easy not to talk to someone when you pretend they don’t exist.

So she’s spent weeks working in secret, in between the snide comments her friends said about Hecate, the snips Hecate sent right back before slinking away into silence the moment Pippa tried to talk to her. 

It had been a dare, in the end; a silly, stupid thing she’d said out loud like she didn’t care if Hecate heard just so she could get a rise out of her. 

‘It’s hardly surprising, given she wears the same thing all the time,’ Pippa added when the rest of the group had wondered who would stand out the most at the ball, and promptly dismissing Hecate and her sullen demeanour. ‘And it’s not like she knows how to make an entrance either.’ It was the first and only time she joined in the gossip about her former friend. ‘Not that it matters, I doubt she’ll even show.’

She’d seen Hecate overhear them from the other end of the hall. Seen the square of her shoulders, the sneer of her top lip and known her words had hit home; the first time after months and months of trying to get Hecate to engage. 

She’d felt pleased, to be noticed. Then sick, that she’d spoken badly of someone who used to be her whole world.  

It was worth it, in the end, because it worked: Hecate materalised right in the middle of the room, wrapped neck to ankle in shining silver, gleaming bright in the orb-light glittering above the dance floor. 

Pippa would have given anything to dance with Hecate that night, to break from the crowd of what seemed like the whole year desperate to glue themselves to her side, determined to heap compliment upon compliment to her bare shoulders and keep her away from one person she actually wanted to be near.

She’d have stared at Hecate the whole night if she could; had to settle for a few stolen glances of a raven-hair witch with a crown on her head, while she sulked in the shadows of the hall and still managed to shine like moonbeams. 

Pippa always loved silver, loved it more on Hecate. Loved Hecate most of all. 

Still does. 

It’s why she kept the dress, she admits now, now that she’s finished pretending she hated Hecate all these years. Because it was easier than admitting she loved her. And it hurts, to pretend what she felt was hate, that anything she’s ever felt for Hecate could be that, now she’s back in Pippa’s life.

Back, but not in the centre, where she should be. Just confined to the peripheries and far away.

She wants to reach out, itches to draw Hecate close again, but wishes Hecate would reach first; she isn’t brave enough to do this on her own.

It’s why she’d gone to Cackle’s in the first place. Why she’d wanted to help, when she’d heard what was happening. So she could be there for Hecate, to do whatever she could to help because she was certain Hecate needed it even if she didn’t know how to ask.

And she knew she couldn’t do anything from behind her own desk.

So when the council sought her out, after all the rumours she’d heard of the others they were considering, she breathed a sigh of relief and done what she had to do. She’d already made herself seem like the obvious choice, and that gave her time, to play with their offer under the pretence of thinking, until she could find some way to help. 

And if there truly was nothing to be done about the situation, there are worse ways for things to pan out. At least this way Hecate would have kept her home. And Pippa could keep her close without making it obvious just how desperately she wants to cling tight to Hecate’s shoulders so she never leaves again. 

She won’t watch her leave. Can’t watch her leave, not again. She isn’t strong enough.

She can’t even bring herself to ask why Hecate abandoned her in the first place. 

Pippa is certain Hecate meant it, when she said she’d missed her too. But she doesn’t know how much, or what kind, or _why_ she’d have missed Pippa all this time when she was the one who left. 

She suspects, hopes, _prays_ she knows what it might be, but she doesn’t know for sure. She never really knows how Hecate feels anymore, because she just won’t say.

She’s been cagey, this past year. Not that Pippa can really blame her; trying to reconnect after all this time has been hard. Harder still for Pippa to reel herself back from asking too much, demanding more than Hecate can manage. Hardest of all to try and guess what Hecate wants, because she never _says—_ no matter how patiently she waits for Hecate to speak up on her own, no matter how Pippa tries to ask when she tires of waiting.

Part of her wonders if Hecate even knows.

Another is is afraid, to ask outright and tackle this head-on like the adult she is, instead of the heartbroken teenager Hecate turns her into. Because what if she’s wrong, what if Hecate doesn’t want her— _never_ wanted her—nevers wants more than scattered mirror calls and broken promises to see each other in the break and one poultry hug every thirty years. What if the distance and the barely talking and the farce of a friendship broken decades ago is all they’ll ever be. 

What if _this_ is all she means to Hecate.

The last part is desperate to know, because what if it’s not?

It’s why she always ends up needling at Hecate whenever she sees her, desperate to find a way under the outer crust and into the softer side she hope is still there. Because Hecate can’t feel _nothing_ , it’s impossible for not to feel anything, and in the end she just can’t help herself.

Hecate’s stoicism always did bring out something petulant in her, something petty and small. It came out from time to time, whenever they competed, both intent on being the best witch in their year: stealing Hecate’s favourite chair in the library so they’d have to study together, egging her on with smug eyebrows and daring eyes while they raced through exams to see who could brew quickest; flying faster, higher, farther during practice, just do see if they could. 

They’d spent their school years trying to be the best witches they could be by besting each other. And it had worked, until it hadn’t. But Pippa only every played because she was sure Hecate knew she had her back if anything ever went wrong, just like she’d trusted Hecate with her life, once upon a time.

Though after today, she knows she got that one wrong too. In fact, she seems to be getting everything wrong when it comes to Hecate. As if she barely knows the witch.

Which is the point, really; she barely knows Hecate, not really, not anymore. Because she’d been positive Hecate wouldn’t want to stay as headmistress—she knows her well enough to see how much she cares about Ada, had been certain Hecate would never stay long once her friend had been ousted—until she spoke up in Miss Cackle’s, _Hecate’s_ office. 

Then, she’d wondered, ‘You weren’t hoping to take over yourself, were you?’ 

She was sure she already knew the answer, and in the end she had; but for a moment she worried that she’d gotten everything completely wrong, that she’d gotten Hecate all wrong. 

Like she doesn’t even know her.

Then Hecate reminded her just how much she loves that place, how she keeps herself tucked away inside, so far away from Pippa’s attempts to reconcile. 

‘You and Ada made a great team.’ _So were we, once_ , she think and tries not to be bitter. Tries to be bright. ‘Maybe we could be too.’

As if anything in the past year could ever have been about something else.  

And just like that, she’s back to where she always ends—stuck on what they used to be, what they _could_ have been, had things been different: a tiny cut at the roof of Pippa’s mouth that might heal one day if she could just stop wondering what it would feel like to have Hecate tongue at it. 

She groans, tired of her own ridiculous thoughts as the familiar sensation of wanting to kiss Hecate scrambles them again. Curses the fact that it’s grown from an echo of a want dulled over time to something real, something tenable, something she could actually just _do—_ press her lips to Hecate’s, damn the consequences, and finally know what she tastes like. 

She’d almost done it before she left, only _just_ held herself back from kissing Hecate right there and then. But they were in a corridor full of children under the watchful eye of Hecate’s newly reinstated headmistress and it wouldn’t have been right; would have ruined everything, if there even is anything to ruin anyway.

Hecate deserves better, and so does she. 

So she’s settled for Hecate’s cheek in farewell, barely able to draw herself away—from the surprised flush warming her lips with Hecate’s body so close that Pippa could almost feel it against her, not just the palm of her hands but _all_ of her: pressed flush and ideally against a wall.

That’s what breaks Pippa, in the end. The thought of Hecate against a wall, panting gently with kissed bruised lips, ravished and dishevelled the way Pippa wants to make her with every third beat of her heart.

She flops onto the bed, pulls her dressing down tight about her, and presses her face into the pillow. 

_Pathetic witch._

Crying won’t help, she knows it won’t, but today has been too much and it’s all in her head—not just Hecate, but Ada and Mildred and the Hallows and the _bloody_ Great Wizard. Even the limits of modern magic with it’s reliance on emotional manipulation, the need for already developed self-awareness and esteem to achieve results (She’d forgotten Cackle’s doesn’t have a support system for its students already in place, that no one would have thought to mention if any witches might be a little twisted up inside, and she hadn’t thought to ask. If she’d stopped, for a moment, to think how Cackle’s is different, not just how it and Pentangle’s could be alike, she could have done better)—and she knows it won’t stay there much longer.  

It’s better to come out as tears than stray magic, especially when she’s managed to drain herself this much; ignoring this will only make it worse. 

So, she lets herself sob.

It’s dark by the time she opens her eyes again, ragged throat and blocked nose, and drags herself out of bed for a glass of water and a doughnut. She feels better after that—exhausted and drained and aching—but better: calm, collected, put back together again. 

She starts to think about actually sleeping, whether she has the wherewithal to brew something to ease her into it or if she’s exhausted enough to stop the whispers that worry at her every night and sleep unaided, when her mirror chimes. 

She thinks about ignoring it—it’s late, after all, she has a ready made excuse—when her magnet flashes nearby. She sees a handful of messages from Hecate and frowns; Hecate has never tried to call her more than once, always content waiting for Pippa to call back when she has the time, and red hot worry settles in her stomach. 

‘Hecate?’ she answers, trying to keep the panic from her voice—as dramatic as Hecate an be, she’s not prone to creating drama were it’s not already present, and a thousand thoughts of what might have happened after she’d left flash through her head. ‘What’s the matter, what’s wrong?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’ Hecate quirks a brow, calm as a cat pleases; it settles Pippa’s nerves just a little. 

‘What?’ she wonders, then glances towards the mirror of her vanity across the and sees herself look a fright: eyes still red rimmed, hair pulled up and messy, clothes creased and rumpled from curling herself around a pillow. She looks away, a little embarrassed, but shakes it off. ‘Nothing, just a long day.’ Hecate sniffs, like she doesn’t believe her, and she can’t help ribbing. ‘You were there for most of it.’

‘Indeed I was.’ Hecate nods slowly, frowning like she’s mulling something over. ‘That’s why I called. You left before I could thank you, for what you did today.’

‘I already said, Mildred—‘

‘And I’d have never listened to Mildred, if she’d even though of coming to me in the first place.’ Hecate smiles, a tiny, tight curl at the very corner of her mouth Pippa would never have seen if she were always half gazing at Hecate’s lips. ‘It’s no secret that she and I have…difficulty communicating. And any allegation from Ada would have been dismissed immediately. If you hadn’t been here today…’ Hecate trails off, unnerved by the hypothetical future they so narrowly missed, and Pippa smiles in what she knows is a vain attempt at reassurance.

‘I’m always happy to help,’ she says instead, a gentle reminder she plans on being around in the future, making a note to add them whenever she can, because she still hasn’t convinced Hecate to let her in yet. She frowns, thinking of the magnet and the missed messages. ’That can’t be all though?’

‘No, well, when you didn’t answer, I thought that your flight home might have been waylaid. I attempted to mirror your deputy, but...’ Pippa nods, humming with realisation; her second-in-command is by no means unaware of Pippa’s desire to keep Hecate all to herself, of course she would have forwarded the call, knowing Pippa was already home safe. ‘Ada urged me to keep trying, but when you didn’t respond…’ she trails off, chewing on her words and a plump bottom lip. She breathes in heavily, rolls her shoulders slightly, and looks right at Pippa. ‘I worried.’

Pippa tilts her head to the side, curious. ‘About?’

‘That you were ignoring me.’

‘Why would I do that?’ Pippa asks, baffled how Hecate could think that’s possible, when she’s the one who’s spent the last year trying to convince herself Hecate isn’t ignoring _her._ ‘That’s your style, not mine.’

She regrets it the second it’s out of her mouth—the moment before, even: such a low blow, the way Hecate’s shoulders sag, the shine of her eyes before she has a chance to look away. 

Hecate’s top lip twitches. ‘Well, now I know you’ve arrived home safely,’ she starts, raising her hand to break the connection. 

'No, Hiccup, wait, please,’ she pleads, reaching out like her hand could stop Hecate’s, never mind the reflective barrier between them. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, I—’ There’s always something getting in the way, something keeping them apart, be it distance, or her big mouth. ‘Has the school settled, now Ada is back?’

The question is enough for Hecate to stay. ‘Marginally.’

‘Oh, well, things will be back to normal in no time, I’m sure.’

‘One hopes.’ But not to talk. 

So Pippa tries again, asking after the staff, Hecate’s studies, anything she might have missed in the last few months since she’s last spoken to Hecate. If she asks enough questions one of them will be right; one of them has to get Hecate to talk. Has to.

But it’s like blood from a stone, and it reminds her that Hecate hadn’t said anything to her when Pippa said goodbye. That Hecate never says anything to her and she doesn’t know why she keeps trying, keeps _hoping,_ when they can’t even hold a normal, civilised, _adult_ conversation. 

She wishes Artimus was here, not flying around the grounds hunting for mice. But she’s all alone here, and she’s tired of not knowing. ‘Hecate why won’t you talk to me?’

Hecate frowns. ‘I am.’

‘Not, _this_ is you barely speaking to me. You’re talking but you’re not saying anything, you _never_ say anything! I’ve been trying and you won’t—you’re not….every time I think we’re getting somewhere, and then it’s broken promises during the break and nothing but silence for _weeks_. Then you call like nothing is wrong, like we have nothing to talk about—it’s not _fair,_ Hecate! I want you in my life but you can’t _do_ this to me, it’s too painful. I love you, I always have, and I don’t even know if you like me anymore.’

‘Of course I like you, Pippa, I—’ she cuts herself off, jaw loosening to leave her mouth gaping while she stares, wide eyed and blinking heavily. ‘You, love me?’ 

Pippa baulks. She hadn’t meant to say it like that, never intended to let it slip out like that. But she can’t bring herself to lie, not even to save herself a broken heart. 

‘Yes, Hiccup, I do,’ she admits, eyes staring at the edge of the mirror. It feels good after all this time. She looks right at Hecate, smiling soft and light. ‘I love you.’ 

Hecate blinks.

Hecate _stares._

Silence stretches, heavy and tense.

Pippa’s face falters, heart starting to crack, as the roar of _nothing_ settles around them; splintering when Hecate finally speaks.

‘You love me,’ she says, voice dull and far away and barely even there. Like she doesn’t believe it; like she doesn’t want it. Like she’s about to run from it. 

Terror wells in Pippa’s stomach. 

‘No, Hecate, I—It doesn’t matter, not if you don’t, if you just want—’ She doubles back, desperate to cover her tracks. ‘Just forget I said anything.’

‘Forget?’ Hecate stares, like Pippa has two heads. Then her eyes flash, voice shape and brittle. ‘How can it not matter?’ 

Pippa flinches. Curls in on herself, small and pathetic and begging, ‘I mean it doesn’t have to change—our friendship it, it—it doesn’t have to ruined everything, Hiccup. Please?’

Hecate blinks. Breathes. Breaks the connection. 

And Pippa’s heart. 

‘Hecate! No, please, don’t!’ She screams, reaching out to grab the mirror, like that might bring her back. ‘Come back, Hiccup, _please_ ,’ she pleads, voice strangled and thick and raw, choking on the fact that she’s gone, Hecate’s left her again. 

Pippa made her leave again. 

The mirror slips from her grasp, clattering on the floor and clawing at her ears. She steps back, hand over her mouth and a palm pressed to her chest while tears burn at her eye, swallowing a sob as she turns, burst heart tearing at her throat and sinking heavy in her stomach. 

She never wanted this, _any_ of this; it’s everything she never wanted.

She stumbles towards the bed. The room crackles, fizzes, _hisses_. She walks right into something, blurred vision and blinking fast, and hands grip at her arms. 

She nearly shouts; sobs instead, when she realises it’s Hecate— _Hiccup!_ —standing not even a foot away, holding onto Pippa, holding herself up as she suck in a series of shaky breaths. 

‘I haven’t done that in a long time.’

She’s lost her mind. Well and truly, this time. It’s hardly the first time she’s imagined Hecate in her room but she’s never hallucinated something like this. Something warm. Something present. Something that might even be real. 

Pippa stares, bewildered and terrified, and cannot believe her eyes. Hecate seems to settle on her feet, standing straight like her real self would, and Pippa reaches out, sure she’ll reach right through Hecate’s shoulder, because this can’t be real. She can’t be real, can’t be here—

Expect she is. Pippa can feel her, solid and alive and right there, under her palm, and she’s _here._

‘How…?’ 

‘I generally avoid long distance transference unless absolutely necessary, but under the circumstances…’

‘What?’

‘You love me,’ Hecate says, like it explains anything. Like it explains everything.

Pippa stumbles, can’t wrap her brain around this, her, anything.‘But, you, before…I thought—’

Hecate cuts her off, grip on Pippa’s arm tightening, ever so slightly. ‘I thought it was just me.’

Her chin quivers. ‘Just, you?’

Hecate nods, ever so slightly. Smiles, small and tiny and _bright._ ‘I love you too.’

She blinks, disbelief and desperate hope, then laughs. 

She can’t help it, can’t hold back the giggle bubbling up her throat, can’t even breathe as she lets herself laugh, happy and high and joyous with those precious,  _precious_ words she’s spent more than half her life wanting to hear fall from Hecate’s beautiful mouth echoing in her ears. Throws her arms around Hecate and buries her face in her shoulder; breathes in the scent of sandalwood and juniper berry and something so distinctly _Hecate_ she knows she’s real. This is real. She’s really here. 

It’s everything Pippa’s ever wanted. 

She pulls away, to check one more time, and finds herself kissed instead: Hecate’s mouth on hers and hands on her waist and the feel of her smile against Pippa’s lips. Her eyes flutter shut as she reaches a hand up to the nape of Hecate’s neck; tilts her head, kisses firmer, moaning softly.

Her nose brushed against Hecate’s when they finally break apart, her hand curled around Hecate’s shoulder and firm hand on her waist. Her cheeks ache for smiling and her eyes blur slightly, as she stares at Hecate staring back at her, warm and bright and as happy as Pippa has ever seen her.

Seeing her like this, it’s all she ever wants. 

She hopes it never stops, but then shadow passes over Hecate’s face. 

‘I know we have a lot to talk about—’

‘Later,’ Pippa pleads, desperate to see her shine again, shaking her head and already aching to kiss her. Again.

So, she does.

Dips her chin and catches her lips and holds Hecate close, swearing she’ll never make her leave again. 

And Hecate lets her. 


End file.
